Evil, good and beyond E-Book

Flávio Gikovate

• Herausgeber: MG Editores
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 173

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

In Evil, Good and Beyond, Flávio Gikovate states that the union between man and woman is a bond between opposites — that is, a selfish person is bewitched by a generous person and the other way around. Yet this kind of relationship causes both partners problems, for they will ultimately go through situations of sorrow and disappointment. According to the author, investing in one's own freedom and individuality is the solution. This could bring about couples formed by fair people, more mature to experience love.

Leseprobe

Dados Internacionais de Catalogação na Publicação (CIP)

(Câmara Brasileira do Livro, SP, Brasil)

Gikovate, Flávio

Evil, good and beyond: the selfish, the generous and the fair / Flávio Gikovate; [translation Alison Entrekin]. – São Paulo: MG Editores, 2009.

Título original: O mal, o bem e mais além: egoístas, generosos e justos.

Bibliografia.

ISBN 978-85-7255-095-6

1. Bem e mal 2. Casais 3. Comportamento humano 4. Ética 5. Relações interpessoais I. Título.

09-06211CDD-158.24

Índice para catálogo sistemático:   1. Bem e mal: Casais: Relações interpessoais: Psicologia aplicada 158.24

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Summus Editorial unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal copyright law.

EVIL, GOOD AND BEYOND

the selfish, the generous and the fair

Flávio Gikovate

Translated by Alison Entrekin

EVIL, GOOD AND BEYOND

the selfish, the generous and the fair

Copyright © 2009 by Flávio Gikovate

All rights reserved by Summus Editorial

Translation: Alison Entrekin

Cover design: Alberto Mateus

Art and design: Crayon Editorial

MG Editores

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Printed in Brazil

Digital edition: november 2012

ePub file produced by Simplíssimo Livros

My reflections on morality began in the second half of the 1970’s. I had begun to detect certain characteristics in my analyses of what brought couples together. The frequency with which psychological opposites were attracted to one another impressed me precisely because it was completely out of keeping with probabilistic forecasts. Almost all quieter, relatively nonaggressive sorts married extroverts with “strong personalities”. And they continue to do so.

In 1977 I published the book Você é feliz? (Are You Happy?), in which I described more selfish people in detail. At the time people were beginning to speculate about the “Era of Narcissism”, in which it was apparently OK to free oneself of all kinds of inner limits and live according to one’s desires. I never shared this point of view, because I saw selfishness as a moral flaw. I believed generosity was a virtue and selfishness, a vice. That’s how all the “nice folks” thought.

In 1981 I published Em busca da felicidade (In Search of Happiness), in which I emphatically aired my early doubts about the “purity” of generous behaviour. I was beginning to tune into the strong presence of vanity and certain aspects of the power play between generous and selfish types, who have always been intensely attracted to one another.

I have worked with thousands of patients and meditated a lot on the subject, which, throughout these decades, has always proved an important factor in the choice of romantic partner, as well as a basic element in the difficulties that arise in intimate relationships. Additionally, I have studied the ways in which sexuality manifests in these two types of human beings. Moral issues have thus always been present in my books.

I have often been labelled as Manichaean, as someone who only sees things in black and white, incapable of understanding that we are complex creatures. I think the reasons for this criticism reside, above all, in my own expressive limitations. We aren’t always able to put what we think into words. I believe I have made important progress in this area, both in writing and in speaking to a wide range of audiences.

I also believe that people’s willingness to consider my hypotheses and thoughts on morality has changed. I am better able to express myself, but people are also reading with less resistance! When I started to write about these issues, Brazil was living under a military dictatorship. There were those who were opposed to it — the “good guys” — and those who supported it — the “bad guys”. It was impossible to try to convince people that the “good guys” weren’t so good after all. There was the Berlin Wall: those on this side of the wall thought that “evil” resided on the other side, and vice-versa. In addition to the cultural tradition in which we were raised, which has always held generosity as a virtue, we lived in a divided world, in which taking sides seemed imperative.

Today this has all changed, and only a few people still believe in “axes of good and evil”. Perhaps it is time to revisit, without bias (free of the prejudices that constitute our beliefs, and paying closer attention to the facts than to ideology), the values that are going to guide us from here on. We have been living in a vacuum, without references and anchorage in our moments of greatest suffering. This might explain why depression is becoming more and more commonplace.

It is not my intention — nor am I equipped — to exhaustively examine such a complex subject, which perhaps should be revisited from time to time. The book you are about to read is an overview of everything I have managed to understand about morality seen through the prism my profession has provided me. If it serves as inspiration and a springboard for all of us to concern ourselves with building a set of values to guide us on this planet we have changed so radically, I will have fulfilled what I set out to do.

Flávio Gikovate

April 2005

Evil, Good and Beyond

I recently read a review of a book published in the United States called Evil: An Investigation1. The author of the review was critical of it, among other reasons, because it didn’t make a significant contribution to solving the problem at hand; in other words, it didn’t put forward any worthwhile hypotheses about the origin of “evil”. Nor did the critic, in turn, consider himself capable of answering such a complex, difficult question, despite his considerable qualifications. This prompted me to write a new text dealing with my own reflections on a subject I have been mulling over since 1977.

Reading this interesting critical text (and others), I learned that “good” and “evil” are not actual entities. They are constructions, almost myths, which have been developing for millenniums and have, in a way, formed a dichotomy seen as inevitable. God and the Devil have fought and will go on fighting forever! As such, “good” looks to “evil” for definition and existence, just as “evil” is defined in comparison with “good”. Most people believe this duality describes us to a T; that we essentially belong to two opposing factions, not just morally, but in everything: Yin and Yang.

My concern with this essential issue has grown over the years. It arose spontaneously and unexpectedly in my analysis of how human relationships are established, especially marital ties between men and women. What has always surprised me is the fact that the overwhelming majority of “voluntary” choices — those which take place spontaneously and are attributed to romantic love — repeat a single pattern: people who are very different to one another, opposites in certain essential aspects of their personalities, are drawn to one another. I was also intrigued by the fact that people seemed to consider it the natural order of things. In other words, the coming together of opposites was encouraged — as registered in nursery rhymes such as “Jack Sprat could eat no fat / his wife could eat no lean / and so betwixt the two of them / they licked the platter clean” and popular expressions such as “opposites attract”. Freud’s reflections in On Narcissism: An Introduction (1914) also took this path, suggesting that the most sophisticated thing, from a psychological point of view, was to seek in others whatever we were lacking, instead of seeking an affinity based on “narcissistic identification”. In other words, people who were shy, discreet, passive, and who found it hard to stand up for themselves should marry people who were outgoing, bold, aggressive, and demanding.

The uniting of opposites was defined and built upon the existence of two opposing types of human beings. Additionally, any romantic interest between them seemed to validate these types. This hasn’t changed, because even today sentimental choices are made in this manner, reflecting a societal belief in two acceptable modes of human behaviour, regardless of their antagonism. We can either be extroverted or introverted. We can keep our aggression in check or have a “short fuse”. We can have stable moods and points of view or we can be unstable and unpredictable. And so on.

1 Lance Morrow, Evil: An Investigation, New York: Basic Books, 2003. Review by Philip Cole in Radical Philosophy, issue 126, July 2004.

We tend to assume that difference automatically means hierarchy. If there are two different personality types, then one must be superior to the other. If men and women are different, then one is superior and the other, inferior. The criteria used to define this depend on the observer and his or her position of power. Certain observations are accepted by the majority and become engrained social values that remain practically unquestioned for generations. It doesn’t guarantee, however, the veracity of the established hierarchy. This was the case with the age-old belief in male “superiority”, debunked in more recent times, and with good reason.

At this point in my musings I found myself facing my first conundrum and source of controversy. If we take as true my decades-old theory that love is born of admiration, then love between opposites implies that we must admire our opposites. In other words, impulsive sorts admire those who show more control (therefore, superior), while controlled sorts tend to admire those who are impulsive. How, then, can we say that one type is superior?

Words like “good” and “bad”, “right” and “wrong” don’t seem terribly useful in an objective assessment two of personality types. These constructions, which imply pre-existing value judgments, can undermine an evaluation intended to be as objective as possible — but which will never be a hundred percent. Hasty value-judgements are not useful when trying to understand the human condition. Ideally we should try to suspend judgement for as long as possible during the process of analysis. Eventually, however, moral assessment is inevitable, at which point we should face it fearlessly and without reservation. But before this we need to try to observe our peers as we do other mammals, and describe their behaviour without bias. This is almost impossible, but it is what we should aim for, despite the difficulty.

In psychology we can employ several other criteria for evaluating people, to establish which personality types and behaviours are more sophisticated than others. Sophistication might be, for example, a person’s ability to refrain from behaviours typical of young children, which are, in a sense, part of the way we are by nature. We refer to the impulsive, even aggressive behaviour typical of children when they are denied something as immature — and the word contains a value-judgement. Immaturity means unsophisticated behaviour that has not been perfected and polished. As a rule, we are born with less tolerance than we need for the trials and tribulations of life in society.

I believe it is no exaggeration to say that low frustration tolerance can stunt a child’s emotional development. It is an inability to overcome a biological limitation in order to meet a cultural requirement of the society in which we live. This is the most striking characteristic of emotional immaturity, which perpetuates itself precisely because it interrupts a person’s process of adapting to his or her social world. Something is missing for these people, who reach adulthood still unable to cope effectively with life’s inevitable pain.

Children who don’t learn to deal better with suffering — this is not about enjoying suffering, much less looking for it; rather it is being able to deal well with the suffering that life inexorably dishes up — interrupt another extremely important process, which is learning to put themselves in other people’s shoes. This ability to step outside of ourselves and imagine ourselves in someone else’s situation comes with the sophistication of reason1. When we reach a particular level of functional development we are able to leave the concrete world of facts and enter the realm of that which doesn’t exist — the world of the imagination. When we put ourselves in another person’s shoes we try to see the world from their point of view, which shatters our exclusively egocentric vision. We acquire the ability to imagine what the next person is feeling, which mostly means being able to imagine their suffering. Children who don’t cope well with psychological pain tend to interrupt this process of putting themselves in other people’s shoes, since it generates new suffering, now felt vicariously. They will be limited to a simplistic, egocentric view of life. They will also be unable to fully develop morally, since putting oneself in someone else’s shoes means considering other points of view and the rights of others.

If we take this one step further and consider that low frustration tolerance is not only immature but also weak, we can then begin the dissection needed to tackle the complex question at hand. The term “weak” contains more moral judgment than “immaturity”. These two words can be compared to their opposites, seen as hierarchically superior, or more appropriate. Maturity is understood as superior to immaturity, and strength superior to weakness.

Maturity is superior to immaturity because those who are better able to tolerate obstacles are better prepared for real life, with less suffering and greater joy. I am not using as a measure of superiority the common notion that everything that comes later is better than what was there before (we tend to think like this when we hear words like “evolution” and “progress”). The measure is quality of life: those who lead happier, calmer, better lives are more mature. More mature individuals overcome turbulence and adversities faster. They can also be considered stronger, since they are able to tolerate greater and even more drawn out suffering. They are able to move on, feeling less hurt and traumatized, which always ensures a happier future.

1

The issue of the forming and development of human reason remains obscure and poorly resolved. I like to make a comparison with computers, machines with which we are growing increasingly familiar. It is as if we were born with the hardware almost completely formed, but completely devoid of software. The hardware is directly related to everything biological, including our genetic equipment. The software, however, is one of the most important acquisitions of our species, which was probably ready to develop it for more than one hundred thousand years, but only managed to start the process in the last ten thousand years with the acquisition of language, which was indispensable to the use of our biological potential. Our privileged biology only became effective, therefore, through a process of socialization and cultural acquisition.

The first stages in the forming of what we call human reason take place in the first few months and years of life, when children begin to recognize the words that name the objects around them, and later those that define movements, actions, and qualities. In this manner, the conditions are created for the building of more and more complex phrases, and psychological processes become increasingly sophisticated, capable of more intricate, subtle operations. At some stage two of the most important human acquisitions appear: the ability to build sentences, which means that a child can have his or her own points of view; and, going a step further, the ability to develop thoughts that involve hypotheses, in other words, situations that are not actually being lived. An extraordinarily complex psychological process with unlimited possibilities — our ability to imagine things that don’t exist — is thus created. The ability to make suppositions and consider possibilities offers our species unusual, unique perspectives. It underpins our ability to put ourselves in other’s shoes and develop a real moral sentiment. It is also directly related to our creative capacity, which is as essential in the sciences as in the arts.

Further to my observation about children’s ability to develop their own points of view, I believe we should consider another important element in their makeup: the children themselves! That is, in addition to the social world, parents, media, and traumatic experiences that happen to everyone at some stage, we must also consider the way in which a child has registered, reflected on, and interpreted each fact of his or her life. Even identical twins, who have identical biology and have been brought up in the same social and family context, can think and act very differently to one another as a result of the particular way in which they understood what happened to them in their childhood.

The subject of the constitution and sophistication of reason is extremely complex and it may take us years to get a better grasp on it. To say we are making great advances and will soon have the basic answers as to how the brain produces thought is naïve — or deliberately misleading.

The first value judgment I am trying to establish has to do with quality of life — not a pre-established notion of what is good or bad. Those who are more controlled, more skilled at dealing with intense emotional situations – involving anger, jealousy, envy, etc. – are stronger. Those who have a “short fuse” and explode more easily for less important reasons are weaker. Those who are able to put themselves in others’ shoes and comprehend their suffering are stronger, while navel-gazers, who only see the world from their own point of view, are weaker. People who devote themselves more to others are stronger, and those who are more concerned with looking after themselves are weaker.

We usually treat weaker people with kid gloves because we know they react badly in situations of pain or adversity. Curiously, these people are often seen as more sensitive, which is why we tend to spare them certain things. This confusion runs deep, since many people believe that individuals with “shorts fuses” have “strong personalities”, which suggests they are actually stronger than others. Because this confusion in the use of terms generally works in their favour, we are better off dealing with this subject with more objectivity and less word three play. Weaker individuals, who can generically be considered selfish, are those who are more concerned with themselves than others, and need to receive more than they give. In my opinion, this shows an obvious deficit in their inner economy.

People with higher tolerance of obstacles and psychological pain often develop a curious behaviour pattern that can be referred to as generosity. It seems they are not content with merely being stronger and, thus, self-sufficient. Everything would lead us to believe that they desperately need to devote themselves to more selfish sorts. Generosity implies giving more than receiving, an obvious sign of a surplus in their inner economy.

What is most interesting about generosity is its nonobligatory nature. While the selfish have to seek externally whatever they lack because they are unable to generate everything they need internally, the generous could easily not be like this: all they’d have to do is keep for themselves everything they generate — or generate less. But this isn’t what happens. The generous feel a kind of compulsion to give. It strikes me as logical that they should direct such dedication at those who not only need it but demand it emphatically; that is, the selfish.

One of the most stable, constant dualities, typical of intimate human relationships, is thus composed. Most couples are like this, as are many societal ties, relationships between friends and between parents and children. Stronger, more self-sufficient individuals seem to have an uncontrollable desire to exert their strength on weaker individuals. They lose much of their self-sufficiency as a result of this desire. The generous seem to love giving to others, and can only do so to the selfish, since other generous sorts also want to give.

When the generous receive something (and this can be a simple birthday present), they feel somewhat diminished, humiliated even. A closer look at this simple fact, which is easy to find and observe, may help explain this kind of behaviour. Generosity is typical of those who are superior and is designed to humiliate those who receive, that is, the selfish. In order for our reason to warp in such a way, it must be under the influence of a very strong feeling. I believe it is time to introduce it.